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Dr Andrea Pia OLD 6.09 and Dr Megan Laws OLD 1.13

This course is compulsory on the BA in Social Anthropology and BSc in Social Anthropology. This course is available on the BSc in Politics. This course is available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit and to General Course students.

This course provides training in the reading and interpretation of multimodal anthropology (with a focus on text, photography, film, sound, and games). It introduces students to detailed, holistic study of social and cultural practices within specific geographic and historical contexts and develops skills in bringing together the various elements of cultural and social life analysed by anthropologists. By the end of each term, successful students will have both a detailed knowledge of three important texts and media and have a rounded view of the three settings studied.

They will also have developed the capacity to think critically about ethnographic writing and filmmaking, and about anthropological engagements with other media such as games, photography, and sound. In addition, the course aims to enable students to examine in detail the process by which ethnographic media are produced through the close analysis of three book-length ethnographic accounts (or the equivalent) in the MT and by providing students with practical training in the production of photo, audio, and video materials in the LT. Students will study a film (or other visual or auditory material) associated with each text or topic each term.

In the MT, students will be required to read the three full set monographs, approximately a third of each monograph (two-four chapters) each week. In the LT, students will be required to read two to three academic chapters or articles each week (with more time given to practical work). It will be essential to do this in order to pass this course. The emphasis in classes and seminars will be on developing students' abilities to read and analyse texts, and to compare and contrast them to other material offered on the course. Supplementary readings or viewings may be provided during the term.

In the MT, students will be provided with basic training in coming up with a research project, taking photographs, recording audio, and shooting video. In the LT, students will be provided with basic training in ethics and risk and in post-production in photography, sound, and film. Over the course of the two terms, students will then be required to work in groups to develop their own media projects. This will be facilitated by a series of basic tasks to take photographs, record audio, shoot video, and work toge